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Book Binding

Yes, I bind books. Usually, the books I've bound have either stayed with the library who owns them, or they've gone to a friend or relative as a gift. I think I've kept three. Of those, I recently found two, and tried to take pictures of them. The picture I link to above turned out particularly well, so I've been showing it off this week.

As I've repeated elsewhere, the book on the left is the first book I ever bound. Thankfully, this picture doesn't show all the mistakes I made all that well. It's done in the Occidental style, which is close to the glue-and-thread bindings still used in America on many but not all hardcovers and a few paperbacks.

The book on the right is new. It's done in the Oriental side-sewn style, or rather my best approximation of it. I haven't found decent instructions for what they did, so I'm trying to make it up as I go along, and attempt to remember what's worked and what hasn't. {lop-sided smile}

I'm experimenting with a new sort of cover. They're called "limp bindings." As far as I can figure, that's what they called softcovers back before anyone really wanted to sell them to customers. The early ones were usually thin cardboard covered with leather. I'm trying to cover cardstock with bookbinder's cloth, because cardstock is easier to find than the slightly heavier stuff they used, and because cloth actually seems to last longer than leather here in the tropics. I hope to have pictures to share soon.